


Of blood and vengeance

by Tabata



Category: Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Book Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the typical mental process of a sociopath, Jonathan explains to us why his father favored the wrong son and how he mercifully tried to fix his mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of blood and vengeance

**Author's Note:**

> So, what happened is that I read this series and I fell madly in love with Magnus Bane. That's why it only seemed logical to write my first story ever in this fandom and make it revolving exclusively around Jonathan Morgenstern.  
> My brain works in mysterious ways.  
> Also, I know that Jonathan and Jace never meet before the third book and that maybe (?) Jonathan didn't know about his father's experiments. But see if I care :)

The first time Jonathan had seen Jace, he was eight years old and Jace was almost seven.

Valentine had never meant for him to see _his brother_ so early, but there wasn't much he managed to keep a secret from him anymore at that point. Jonathan was as cunning and sharp-minded as Valentine was, and if their colors and looks weren't exactly the same already, Jonathan's devious intelligence would be enough proof of the fact that he was, indeed, Valentine's real son.

Jonathan got things pretty quickly for his age, sometimes even going as far as foreseeing them enough days in advance to surprise his father with his knowledge when he came to visit him. Valentine's eyes would open wide for just a moment in sheer excitement and, Jonathan dared to hope, pride before turning back to the usual pool of black strictness that they always were. Jonathan hung to those precious, brief moments when his father would show him some kind of recognition, and worked hard to ignite them, trying to be as quick-minded and smart as possible to make his father love him more.

But then Lilith's blood in him really started to kick in and his intelligence became more vicious. The way he thought – Jonathan noticed – started to scare Valentine. The man would keep his distance and refrain to touch him unless it was necessary, and he would wince every time Jonathan's actions ended with the death of _something_. Not that Valentine's hands weren't stained with the blood of the hundreds of Downworlders he was experimenting on in his laboratory – Jonathan knew about those, of course – but he apparently seemed horrified when Jonathan did the same with little birds and rats he found in the woods around the hut. He would catch those little creatures with incredible swiftness and then proceed to dissect them, sometimes not even bothering to kill them first. He would only do that when they were being really noisy and he couldn't bear to hear their screams of agony. It was a cruel game of _I just want to see how it works_. It was his curiosity and the wish to imitate his father that pushed him to do such things, as it happened to any other child, but it was Lilith's blood that twisted his every healthy desire into something darker and sickly, without Jonathan knowing that he was doing something bad at all.

He did notice that something was off with him when Jace came in the picture, though. It would have been impossible not to see how differently his father behaved around the other kid. Valentine would speak to him with the same curt strictness, but he was somehow more patient with Jace than he was with Jonathan, and more lenient too. Jace made tons of stupid mistakes and Valentine scolded him, but never as harshly, never as cruelly, as he did with Jonathan; even if Jace was clearly slower than he was. 

After that first day when he had followed his father to see where he lived when he wasn't with him and found out he had another kid whom he was training as well, Jace's memory stuck in Jonathan's head as only unhealthy obsessions do, and he would go to Wayland's manor as often as he could without his father knowing. Spying on them from behind the trees in the garden, he would try to understand why Valentine was wasting his time with Jace, what was that he saw in this other kid who looked so plain to him.

Jace with his fair hair and amber eyes. Jace who moved as gracefully as every Shadowhunter did from the beginning of time and was as deadly as it was expected from him when he trained with dummies Valentine would set for him to kill, and yet he was so quiet, so gentle when he didn't hold a sword. Jace liked to read, to ride, to sit on the grass and look at the sky trying to see shapes in the clouds. He lacked the twisted curiosity Jonathan had for things when they died. While Jonathan would open a dead bird up to see when the blood stopped flowing, Jace would mourn the creature and bury it, saying for it the same prayers adults addressed to warriors. _Ave atque Vale_. He himself was a focused little warrior, capable of pity and sometimes as composed as an adult, but he could also laugh like kids do, for everything and nothing at the same time.

Suddenly, in Jace's purity, Jonathan was able to see his tainted soul.

Furious, he stopped going to Wayland's Manor altogether, in an attempt to deny Jace's mere existence. He could, after all, be better and do better, and soon his father would come to him and remain with him forever, because he was _his real son_. Valentine _had_ to love him more. Especially when he was so clearly more suitable for his plans than that stupid, emotional, blonde little brat who broke down in tears for a dead bird, who had never been whipped or hit and yet was clearly hurt when his father said a harsh word to him. Jace was weak, Jonathan was strong. Valentine would see which one of his sons was going to make him proud.

But that never happened. If anything, Jonathan had the feeling that Valentine was more and more disgusted by him the stronger and more ruthless he became. Valentine's behavior toward him didn't change even when he was forced to fake his death as Michael Wayland and let Jace go to the Lightwoods. If Jonathan had hoped it was going to be just the two of them then, he was wrong. Valentine had never showed real affection to him, but he certainly was even colder to him now. He treated him with the same detachment and superiority he would treat the demons he summoned for his plans, no matter how good Jonathan was at completing the task he gave him.

Valentine treated him like a monster, forgetting he was the one who created him.

But just like Jace, Jonathan couldn't hate his father. So his anger and frustration turned to hatred toward the only person he could hold responsible for the fact that his life, his abilities, he himself weren't enough for Valentine, and that person was Jace. As Valentine's plan took form, Jonathan plotted his own plan, fed his own desire to end this feud once and for all. As much as every attempt of Valentine to talk Jace into coming back to him hurt Jonathan, Jace refusing each and every one of them made him insanely happy. 

Here you go, _father_. He thinks you are the monster, how does it make you feel?

Becoming Sebastian was awfully easy. Nobody knew him, nobody had ever seen him and Jonathan was a great actor, a skill he liked to ascribe to himself and not to the demon blood that ran through his veins. All it took was some good hair dying, and neither the Penhallows nor the Lightwoods suspected a thing. Only Jace. Always Jace. Tormented little Jace, so worried because he was convinced Clary Fairchild was his sister and he loved her so much. A problem that he, Jonathan Morgenstern, didn't have at all.

It had been funny to drag his sister into the mess. While Valentine didn't seem to have much of an interest in his second-born, Jonathan found her quite interesting. She was so clueless about everything, so unaware of what really happened before her birth or what was going to happen in a matter of hours to this new world she had just discovered. The only thing she could see or care for was Jace, _her brother_ Jace, whom she loved. It was hilarious to Jonathan that she could not sense how her real brother was just right next to her, comforting her, even charming her after Jace's stinging words.  
She was so angry, and so lost. She didn't even suspect. How could she, when his father had done his best to convince her, Jace and the Clave that Jace was Valentine's son? Nobody knew about Jonathan, but they were going to.

He had patiently waited for the right moment. Always at his father's orders. Even in the hatred he felt and that was so confusing in his object, he still felt some kind of pride in saying those words aloud. He was Valentine's son. And the truth of those words were a balm, a source of power to do what he wanted and had to do. They were worth something, and their worth was his worth. He would prove himself to his father and took his revenge on Jace, all by helping Valentine to complete his plan.

When he felt Jace breathing in the cave, he had immediately known it was him. It was a tingling sensation, like someone had struck a chord inside him. The expression on Jace's face was priceless. Like Clary, he didn't know much and understood even less. As much as he had always thought to know Valentine and to be exactly like him, he wasn't and he did not know him. And Jonathan was a living proof of that, right in front of him.

Beating Jace had been liberating, and quite funny actually. His great Shadowhunter's skills had instantly paled before his own and, shocked as he was for the news he had just received, he was easily reduced to a whiny bundle on the ground. He was defeated and Jonathan needed only to strike one last time to reach his goal. That was when the Lightwood girl arrived and destroyed what he had carefully built. She attacked him to save _her brother_ Jace, how ironic, and Jonathan had to respond, to defend himself like anybody else would have done.

Like the little boy would have done, probably. Jonathan hadn't meant to hit him so strongly. His death wasn't planned.

The split second in which Max Lightwood's face showed up in his mind was the fraction of a moment his sister Isabelle needed to strike back and cut his hand off. Suddenly it was pain, strong and deep and maybe not even coming from his wrist dripping blood on the ground. Jonathan saw the ground, the water, Isabelle's fierce and angry face and heard her spitting words in his direction but didn't know what they were, everything was suddenly a blur as he stumbled forward. 

His revenge was slipping from his fingers. The thought that he wasn't going to kill Jace now or never was strangely tangible. It had a real body and no matter how much he tried, he couldn't reach it nor touch it anymore. Yet, in all this, when he should have been angry and full of hate, he was strangely calm. Not at peace, but not angry either. His last thought, and he was certain about it, was that _he could explain. He could explain everything._

Then Jace's hand went down, the blade piercing through Jonathan's skin and bones, his mocking voice telling him that they had received the same gift for their tenth birthday. How to deliver a perfect killing strike to the neck, of course.  
The last image he saw was his own face with darker hair. Sebastian's face. Then, all went dark.


End file.
